Hitler trained the Muslim Brotherhood says ex-grand mufti

Egypt's former grand mufti has recently said that the Muslim Brotherhood sent hundreds of its members to receive "training" from the Nazi regime in the 1940s.

Shiekh Ali Gomaa said on his religious television programme Wallahu Alam that the Brotherhood was originally founded as a proselytisation movement before it became a political party.

"For the 11 years before 1939 the Brotherhood were good and everyone supported them, after that they began training in Helwan, Tora and Natrun," the Shiekh said.

[The Muslim Brotherhood] sent 700 members to train under Hitler - Shiekh Ali Gomaa

"They sent 700 members to train under Hitler. This came to light much later in documents released by German authorities," he added.

Gomaa said the Brotherhood had "changed its skin" from religious movement to a power hunger political party with ambitions of taking control of Egypt.

The former grand mufti has previously claimed that the Brotherhood's founder Hassan al-Banna coordinated with Hitler to establish a military wing with the help of Amin Hussein, the grand mufti of Jerusalem between 1921 and 1937.

Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 as a grassroots movement. He later formed a military wing for the purposes of fighting the British occupation at the time and to take part in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

The armed wing was later dissolved and the Brotherhood - which has recently been undergoing an internal struggle to maintain its condemnation of violent means - has continued to use a gradualist, peaceful approach to change.

	Banna established the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928

Gomaa has previously made condemning statements against the Brotherhood and its members.

"The Muslim Brotherhood are the heretics of our age, and when we kill them, God, His angels and His Prophet are on our side," he said during the violent breakup of the sit-ins at Rabaa and al-Nahda squares.

He also said: "When we kill one protester, we are saving one hundred from among the people, because this person would have killed them."

He also recently said that Muslims must obey Egyptian President Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi even if he is an unjust ruler.

The Brotherhood operated as an underground movement until the 2011 revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak and allowed the group to form a political wing, which won both the presidential elections and a majority of seats in parliament.

Since the ousting of Brotherhood leader and former president Mohamed Morsi in 2013, Sisi has violently cracked down on the group by outlawing them as a terrorist organisation, arresting thousands of their members and handing death sentences to several of its leaders, including Morsi himself.